The Federal Constitution is the supreme law of Brazil. It is the foundation and source of the legal authority underlying the existence of Brazil and the federal government. It provides the framework for the organization of the Brazilian government and for the relationship of the federal government to the states, to citizens, and to all people within Brazil.
The Federal Senate (Senado Federal), which has 81 seats — three members from each States and the Federal District, elected according to the principle of majority to serve eight-year terms. One-third are elected after a four-year period and two-thirds are elected after the next four-year period.
There are no limits on the number of terms one may serve for either chamber. The seats are allotted proportionally to each state's population, but each state is eligible for a minimum of eight seats and a maximum of 70 seats. The result is a system weighted in favor of smaller states that are part of the Brazilian federation.
Currently, 15 political parties are represented in Congress. Since it is common for politicians to switch parties, the proportion of congressional seats held by particular parties changes regularly. To avoid that, the Supreme Federal Court ruled in 2007 that the term belongs to the parties, and not to the representatives.
Brazilian courts function under civil lawadversarial system. The Judicial branch is organized in states' and federal systems with different jurisdictions.
The judges of the courts of the first instance take office after public competitive examination. The second instance judges are promoted among the first instance judges. The Justices of the superior courts are appointed by the President for life and approved by the Senate. All the judges and justices must be graduated in law. Brazilian judges must retire at the age of 70.
Federal judicial branch
Superior Court of Justice
The national territory is divided into five regions, which are composed of two or more states. Each region is divided into Judiciary Sections (Seções Judiciárias in Portuguese), coterminous with the territory of each state, and subdivided in Judiciary Subsections (Subseções Judiciárias), each with a territory that may not correspond to the states' comarcas.
The Judiciary subsections have federal courts of the first instance and each Region has a Federal Regional Tribunal (Tribunal Regional Federal) as a court of the second instance.
There are special federal court systems, in which such as Labour Court (Justiça do Trabalho) for labor or employment-related matters and disputes, Election Justice (Justiça Eleitoral) for electoral matters, and Military Justice (Justiça Militar) for martial criminal cases, each of them with its own courts.
There are two national superior courts that grant writs of certiorari in civil and criminal cases: the Superior Justice Tribunal (Superior Tribunal de Justiça, STJ) and the federal supreme court, called the Supreme Federal Court (Portuguese: Supremo Tribunal Federal).
The STJ grants a Special Appeal (Recurso Especial) when a judgment of a court of the second instance offends a federal statute disposition or when two or more second instance courts make different rulings on the same federal statute. There are parallel courts for labor law, electoral law and military law.
The STF grants Extraordinary Appeals (Recurso Extraordinário) when judgments of second instance courts violate the constitution. The STF is the last instance for the writ of habeas corpus and for reviews of judgments from the STJ.
The superior courts do not analyze any factual questions in their judgments, but only the application of the law and the constitution. Facts and evidence are judged by the courts of the second instance, except in specific cases such as writs of habeas corpus.
